What is Simfest?

We're a collection of friends who raise money for charity by building and flying full sized cockpit flight simulators. We arrange and partake in various events throughout the year which challenge the crew and broadcast the video live of the results for you to watch. We donate our time and simulators for free and don't ask for any payment or subscription to watch our feed but rather ask that if you enjoy what you see that you donate to our charity of the year.

We have raised over £95,000 for various charities including Mental Health Research, The Alzheimer's Societ, London Air Ambulance, RNLI, Dreamflight, Cancer Research UK, Grace For Gulu and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.

Last year we raised £25,000 for Mental Health Research.

This year we will be raising money for Contact the Elderly.

Who are we?

A small group of us met flying on VATSIM, the Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network, which connects members simulating air traffic controllers with those on their desktop flight simulators. A shared passion allowed friendships to form and we were soon flying together all over the world from our home PCs.

By 2004 hardware and software had developed to the stage where it was possible to build a full sized cockpit and work soon begun creating a Boeing 777 simulator. We flew the 777 for 5 years in various events throughout the world however sadly the time came where Gary, the sim owner, had to move and the simulator was deconstructed and stored away.

Luckily during the previous 2 years Ralph had been building a Boeing 737 simulator and in 2010 we undertook our first event in his simulator.

In 2014 Gary began work on his second simulator, this time building a Boeing 747 which we used for WorldFlight in 2015.

Sadly Ralph felt that the time he had to spend on his 737 sim had become more and more limited and in mid-2016 he started the painful process of dismantling it. All the parts are destined for good homes and Ralph will continue to be a valued member of the Simfest team.